It Was Exactly One Year Ago Yesterday ...

Fiona, on her birthday yesterday here in Great Britain

     

    This Around the World Trip, How did this whole thing get started anyway?

     Last year, on April 8th 2014, we had a birthday party at our house.  It was Fiona's birthday.
     If you may have noticed, that was also the date yesterday, only a year later.  Fiona enjoyed another birthday celebration here (shown in the picture above), and she thanks everyone for their birthday wishes. 

    But last year was a significant birthday, you know, like the kind with a zero on it.  I wanted to do something special so I wrote her a song.  We performed it (the family and I) and sang it to her.  
    We also performed a little skit, with a spinning globe and an airplane.   
     I presented her with the gift of an Around the World trip.  "We are going to travel around the world, like all the way around, just keep going until we get back again"  Included was a planning book to record the research, details, and trip plans.  She was delighted to say the least! ... and began working on the trip since that day. 
     So now, a year later, we are nearing the end of the trip.  Seems hard to believe.  
     We are currently in the UK, north of London, spending time with close family relatives here.  Fiona was born and raised in Scotland.       We arrived here from Ireland yesterday. A bit ironic that we have come full circle - wait, that's just a figure of speech - we won't be full circle until we get home to Oregon next week.

    I wrote about the planning process much early on this blog when we started the trip.  We had to decide where to go and how to get there.  And which direction to begin the trip - in our case we started going West, and if you go far enough you will eventually arrive home. 

    It has worked out well, and I'm glad we went this direction.  If we had started out going East, like to Great Britain and Europe first, then we would have reversed the order, and hit some of the rough spots later.  
    It's better to hit the more difficult parts at the beginnning and end up with a little more relaxed finish.  In other words, tackle the hard part first and allow yourself a little easier time at the end. 
    For one thing, we're getting a wee bit weary.  
    You have to pace yourself, and I think we did a good job of that, but sooner or later you run out of gas.  We haven't completely run out of gas, but I wouldn't want to be stuck in Cambodia or Egypt at this point feeling worn out.  We needed to be at our best.  

We're still traveling, on the road in England

As you may have noticed, we are rather fond of Indian food, like curries and such.  This was part of the birthday dinner last night.

And since we are with family - here are the grand daughters of Fiona's sister Mabel at the birthday party.

And the party just keeps on rockin - here are the grand daughters, Emily and Jessica dancing to the tune of "Frozen"

We went to a nearby town (actually it was a ways off) to have lunch with Fiona's cousin Linda.  The Bull restaurant. 

Across the road was an old Tudor style house that was around 400 years old.

Tomorrow ... London